Does that mean that, after a long and painful period of anticipation, the moment for calling Whole Foods fascist has finally, blissfully, arrived?
I think you have to start with the fact that, for these people, their job is primarily tribal and partisan. So everything is interpreted in that light. Does it hurt that Tim Noah trashes his book? No, that's just the other side playing the game. And what does it mean to make his argument with care? I think he's sincere in that he's putting a lot of effort into it, but that doesn't mean that the outcome is ever in doubt.
the moment for more or less calling Hilary Clinton a fascist has passed
I'd agree, but at this point, they might be better off waiting to see if her becomes President--it'd probably come back into fashion again.
On the main point, I think you may be underestimating the soothing effect of living in a right-wing bubble. The level of mockery Goldberg receives no doubt has an impact on him--he wouldn't whine so otherwise--but remember that there's a significant chunk of people out there who think Mark Steyn is a serious and intelligent person whose writings are worth paying money to read. Not to mention the existence of other conservative magazines and media who will treat whatever Goldberg finally comes up with the care he thinks it deserves.
It's nice to see the pyschological state of "these people" being so carefully examined. Not so surprising that the conclusions would leave everyone's consciences more or less clean, however...
Do you want to actually defend Goldberg, cg?
7: You might try reading some accounts of the recent National Review cruise, if you're interested in more in this vein. Revealing, IMHO, although I can't speak to the conscience-cleansing qualities of such stuff.
Am I the only one who had no idea the founder of Whole Foods was a libertarian (or as Ezra Klein typo-ed in his post, a 'libertartian', which is kind of awesome)?
I saw one of the video things that Goldberg did with Yglesias. Goldberg seems real personable in a fratty kind of way. He probably comes across real well on tv too. Making stupid arguments doesn't seem to hurt conservative opinion columnists.
8: No, not defend him. I just can't help but feel that his silly arguments are on the whole less bad than our silly obsession with them. Both because of the damage to political discourse and - if it's not an overly moralistic thing to say - Goldberg himself.
I'm entirely sincere, I'm afraid. The "less bad" thing is probably an exaggeration - but I am sincere in feeling a little disappointed that THIS is liberal political debate. (And a little amused, what with the constant snickering at the right's "politics of resentment.")
But, hell, I'm making this point in the wrong place. Unfogged is the very incarnation of the left's "politics of resentment." Well, no, that would be The Poor Man - but Unfogged is close...
Sadly, Unfogged is the very face of the resentful left today.
But, this isn't liberal political debate. This is making fun of Jonah Goldberg.
I'm quite enjoying cg's slow revealing of the sad face of dull provocation, comment by comment.
Yeah, we're not debating. We're all in agreement that Goldberg is a buffoon.
CG, you're killing me. But wd be funnnier if you'd said "very face of" instead of "very incarnation of."
Damn, I'm so slow today. Yeah, in our defense, this isn't the political debate thread; if it were, we'd be taking Jonah seriously thus undermining your point.
the very incarnation of
How come no one ever says 'avatar'? Blatant Christonormativism.
"The sad face of dull provocation" - pretty awesome. I guess I have nothing more to say, since nothing is really being said.
God, it's got to be disappointing when you come all this way to have an argument and you find that no one's really arguing, just pointing out the plain fact that Goldberg's a buffoon.
Look, I came here for an argument, I'm not going to just stand--
Oh, oh I'm sorry, but this is abuse.
Oh, I see, well, that explains it.
I'll ban myself on the way out.
Actually, nothing was explained. You abuse Jonah Goldberg - but it's OK, because you have serious discussions elsewhere. As if debasement weren't debasement because the whole thing isn't rotted yet.
Actually, nothing was explained.
Does this help, cg?
No, no. It's not okay because we're having serious discussions elsewhere, it's okay because he's genuinely ridiculous.
We're not the ones who made him subtitle his book "From Hegel to Whole Foods." We're just enjoying the show.
More in sadness than in anger, naturally.
No, no. It's OK to abuse Jonah Goldberg because it's okay to abuse pretentious idiots who write vanity books. The fact that we also have intelligent discussions is just a bonus.
28: LB, you misunderstand the nature of the Cala-pwn. It is I who pwn you, not the other way round. Please to correct in the future.
I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, beyond the bit where you said you were pwned.
May we at least retire the notion that there is something more mature and praiseworthy about liberal debate, then? And the usual scorn for talk radio, "the politics of resentment," etc. along with it?
Let me check... Sorry, turns out to be no. When we start making fun of Goldberg because his child died, rather than because he's professionally incompetent, get back to us.
And did you bring pastry?
cg, do you have some prior post you could reference to which your complaints actually apply, or is this just some verbal tic of yours?
I am sincerely curious: why do you think this is an example of liberal debate?
cg, for there to be a debate someone must disagree. The only person who has even hinted at disagreement is you. Please articulate your disagreement and we will be happy to maturely and praiseworthily debate you. Until then, waffles.
cg walks into a museum and sees a painting. 'At least may we retire the idea,' he says, 'that modern art tastes like chocolate?'
No, no, it's ok to abuse Jonah Goldberg. Because.
Wasn't Jonah Goldberg trolling Slate with a sock puppet a while back?
35: Do I really need to link to every post about Jonah Goldberg and, also, about the base nature of conserative debate ever made?
36: This post obviously wasn't liberal debate. But this blog - and other, even more serious blogs which have nearly identical posts every time Goldberg ever opens his mouth - hope to be forums for liberal debate, no?
Mocking Goldberg damages political discourse? Please. He was recently on Talk of the Nation poo-pooing climate change science, and dutifully interjected the talking point about Rachel Carson being guilty of genocide, one of the more profoundly cynical arguments of the anti-environmental right (naturally, Neal Conan let the remark pass without challenge). But we musn't point out that he's a pernicious idiot?
There are blogs even more serious than this one?
I aspire to liberally debate the following: How did Jonah Goldberg come about the vial of baby's tears he wears about his neck? The honest way?
12:24 pm THIS is liberal political debate.
1:16 pm This post obviously wasn't liberal debate.
Any other obvious things you need explained before we continue?
37: 'Debate' between liberals and conservatives, not between me and you. 'Discourse' is a more precise word, but it's a little too over-used and pretentious for me to use every time.
38: Oh, be honest!
42: A fine point - except, this post did none of those things. Where's the "perniciousness" in Goldberg's clownish argument that Hegel is a liberal fascist?
I'm sorry it took me so long to defend Jonah Goldberg. I liberal-debated a lot as a kid.
Also -- the subtitle thread is so last night, but I can't resist...
...from the Renaissance to Restoration Hardware.
...from Schopenhauer to Storables.
...from Lenin to Linens 'n Things.
Oh, be honest!
Yeah, cg clearly is not in a museum.
I just had a long comment composed that tried to squeeze some sense into what cg is saying, against my better judgment reading her comments as sincere rather than trolling, focused on unpacking 12 and drawing conclusions therefrom, but I gave up and erased the whole thing. It's a nonsense argument.
I still like ... from Topo Gigio to Pinot Grigio.
But this blog - and other, even more serious blogs which have nearly identical posts every time Goldberg ever opens his mouth - hope to be forums for liberal debate, no?
Nearly identical? Fighting words, sir!
Who says you have to stop liberal debating?
47: This [post] is not liberal debate but this [blog] claims to be. Understand?
I think cg is saying that, Standpipe.
Where's the "perniciousness" in Goldberg's clownish argument that Hegel is a liberal fascist?
You presume he has an argument. I presume that he has a change in a subtitle, which isn't the same thing.
FL, you've got me thinking about the Pensées and how Pascal winds up the argument musing about how to come to belief (since he doesn't buy his argument, either), and I keep trying to apply it to the subtitle, and I got nothing.
FL, you've got me thinking about the Pensées
Try to be more careful, Cala. It's spelled "penises".
Pascal's Triangulation is all about forming centrist compromises.
If you want understand what this blog is about, first you ought to read the rollover text. Then you should probably read the archives for a year or so. Then, if you think up a cock joke involving Jonah Goldberg, you are welcome to please share it.
It's not about the subtitle per se, Cala, but about the experience of being Jonah Goldberg and how he seems to be caught in the midpoint of taking Pascal's Wager.
No, seriously. Imagine being convinced by PW and finding (straightforward) reasons to believe, then coming to think that you have these reasons only because of PW, and regarding oneself as engaged in an epistemically illegitimate enterprise, and so on.
I got it ("a change in subtitle is not an argument"), but that requires a level of insight I don't think we have any particular reason to believe is likely from M. Goldberg.
anyway, when I said I didn't get it, I meant that I've been trying to work up a good joke about 'acting as you want to be' and not getting anywhere with it, not that I didn't get the gist of your post.
58: This blog claims to be about liberal debate? Where? Can you link? I'm relatively new here, so I didn't know that.
Which is as good a time as any to ask all the more longtime frequenters of the blog something I've wondered -- where is Unf? The blurb in the "about" link seems outdated. I see his/her/its name in the earlier page of the archives, but I don't dare read the hundreds of other entries until I get the point where the eloping/retirement/extraordinary rendition is explained.
I genuinely don't see your point, cg. You make debate with the idiotic right-wing hacks you have, not the gentle seekers after truth you wish you had. The appropriate response to Jonah Goldberg's brand of truthiness is mockery, so yes, this is your debased political discourse. You don't like it, take it up with the Pantload.
Unf is the funny one. Pretty much ogged only has co-bloggers who stop posting.
Unf still appears at long intervals. The real question that haunts us all is where is Bob?
oh hell, sorry, Cala, I misread your comment.
Sorry, I wasn't very clear. But it was cute, you teaching me philosophy of religion. Like storytime.
Oh, speaking of elevated political discourse:
The anger over the bill was never so much over immigration, as it was over the contempt that many of the political class seemed to display regarding people who -- to coin a political phrase -- work hard and play by the rules.
Uhm.
nooooooo didn't mean it in condescending way! sorry, I blame the sinuses.
I blame the fact that it's 95 degrees in my office.
76: That's a popular meme on immigration boards. "We SUFFER as we follow the RULES!' usually followed by some nonsensical argument about rounding them all up without due process, how all Mexicans have HIV and are murderes, and then lots of vapors about how they're not racists. (If you want to have fun, point out that there's something a little weird about granting someone an automatic greencard for being willing to fuck an American but not for living here for 20 years.)
But the idea that we're rewarding lawbreaking by not continuing with the status quo (we ain't deporting 11 million illegals) is a popular one.
71: This is really the only appropriate response? (I would direct you The Poor Man's Goldberg comic, but I don't know how to link here.)
Perhaps I should have taken up this argument in that thread, not here. I only started this here because I thought it was a whole other level of absurdity that Goldberg-haters might stop to - empathize with him. And then, of course, to reach the conclusion that nothing's wrong - that he's a partisan hack with a grand network of supporters, and so no restraint is necessary.
Yeah, Cala, what gets me is the "no, it's not about race at all. Or fear of Spanish." Even if you *could* make the case that Reynolds identifies, it's pretty clearly not, as a matter of psychological fact, that this case explains the actual anger.
cg, would you like less empathy? More guilt? We're flexible.
In my boundless generosity, I leave it up to you.
Anyway, it's unfortunate I've been taken for a troll, posting here is a decent way to pass the time at work.
And what's with the coining of a phrase. That isn't a coining.
80: I think it is part of the anger. It shouldn't be with the marriage-based visa class, but I could see someone who had a loved one deported over an arrest or a failed adjustment or who has been waiting 12 years to bring his mother over from the Phillipines feeling betrayed that the system really did let them down.
But outside of that class, I'm pretty confident that everyone else is just scared of Mexicans, to the extent that they ignore that not all illegals are border-jumpers, that not all are Hispanic, that not all are Mexican. You can dress it up in playing by the rules, but I'd be willing to bet that given how annoying the rules are, most of these guys have hired an illegal to work on their house or yard or watch their kids, so let them not get too much with the sanctimony on the lawbreaking.
I thought it was pity and terror.
Text, have I noted recently that Abraham Lincoln was a homosexual? That's what the Civil War was about, you know.
God, that novel kills me.
everyone else is just scared of Mexicans
But they're so short!
Best commentary on the immigration bill yet. The National Review has defeated a "combined force of Big Business, (some of) Big Labor, Big Media, Big Religion, Big Philanthropy, Big Academia, and Big Government," but we are regrouping and if they become complacent they will be overrun by marauding Turks just like the scrappy Serbs in the battle of Kosovo.
Yes, clearly motivated by their strong sense of solidarity with legal immigrants.
I love how everyone who is purported allied against the forces of the White and the True pretty much hate each other.
The National Review has defeated a "combined force of Big Business, (some of) Big Labor, Big Media, Big Religion, Big Philanthropy, Big Academia, and Big Government,"
TNR hearts E. F. Schumacher, see.
I find amusing the very idea of Big Philanthropy as a menacing force. Not even to mention Big Academia.
93: I thought that at first, but I think the dumbest thing is the idea that NOT militarizing the border & arresting, detaining, & deporting people en masse is a sign of "Big Government" running amok.
Yeah, that's probably better. And the whole George Washington thing.
TNR is The New Republic, not National Review, Hay-Zeus.
I don't want to weigh in on the question "is Jonah Goldberg a buffoon," but I do think cg is in a large part right that it is an error to dwell on questions of these kinds.
The enterprise bespeaks a desire for something analagous to what the epistemologists call a "defeater" -- a reason to reject out of hand or ignore a source. I don't at all mean to suggests that these defeaters cannot be found, or that they aren't often useful. It's rather that the motivation for seeking defeaters should be information overload -- we need to make a decision, we can't consider all sources, we should thus rapidly cull to a few reliable ones, etc.
This is not a useful process when the goal is to find new or unusual ideas, or to find the truth with not much of a time or decision pressure. Indeed, it's the wrong process. No person is a perfect negative oracle, and pretending that they are just ends up limiting the range of ideas you come into contact with. To traverse the political spectrum: paleocons (e.g., Daniel Larison) think the enlightenment was a mistake. Progressives (e.g., Ezra Klein) think a system of government prizes could "easily" replace a market price system for pharmaceuticals. Libertartians (Wil Wilkinson) think the nation state is not a relevant unit for moral analysis. One can, of course, view these positions (or others, should you find all these eminently plausible) as defeaters or "reasons to ignore" the ideology and those who espouse it. To ignore progressivism, or libertarianism, or paleoconservatism on these grounds, however, is to choose intellectual poverty.
96: Oops! It's been getting harder to tell the difference.
97 is a lovely comment, baa, but I have no idea what it has to do with Jonah Goldberg reading Hegel.
98:"Libertartians" = free pastries for all! But not necessarily happiness.
I "choose intellectual poverty." along with chastity and obedience. It is an Opus Dei thing, like the belt around my thigh. Also a vow of intellectual dishonesty.
The ideologies I can handle. It's Republicans I can't stand.
baa, with love and all, but no one's making arguments about the epistemic force of Goldberg's pronouncements.
Admit, at least, that you must wonder about the interior life of someone whose forthcoming is called "...from Hegel to Whole Foods." Surely you must replay that old REM record in your head: "at long last, have you no sense of decency?"
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the specific topic: Goldberg on Hegel. It hopes to have something to do with explicating of what I took to be cg's motivation writing:
"No, not defend him. I just can't help but feel that his silly arguments are on the whole less bad than our silly obsession with them"
But it doesn't successfully address that. Your comment spoke to the fact (which is true) that mocking Goldberg is not a useful way of getting at the truth on the political issues that shape our world. And so it isn't. Cg was suggesting that it was an actively harmful pastime, and I'm not seeing support for that.
Judging a book by its cover isn't necessarily an error. But it can become a habit before we know it.
Again, I fully agree that we shouldn't dismiss someone as a hapless moron worthy only of mockery without fully evaluating their potential as a thinker. This still doesn't get in the way of poking fun at Goldberg specifically.
But I'm just being mean. Yes, it would be a better world if no one ever unfairly dismissed anyone else and we were all nice. You first.
And seriously, can you not look around the web and see people who have constructed elaborate echo chambers of mockery? Fun-houses where every progressive wants to nationalize the steel industry, and every libertarian wants to privatize the sidewalks? Are you really so convinced that you never partake in this at all? I'm not some confident about myself.
if no one ever unfairly dismissed anyone else and we were all nice
Has someone been unfairly dismissed? That's the part that's confusing me.
progressive wants to nationalize the steel industry, and every libertarian wants to privatize the sidewalks?
See if the Department of Steel sells Mr. Private Sidewalk guy any rebar. Advantage, progressives!
107 -- do you see Unfogged as a rejection of this structure? I do not.
elaborate echo chambers of mockery
hey, that's my workplace you're libeling!
Because I am old, "I don't know how to link here" always disconcerts me. With HTML! (I realize that wikis and lots of bulletin boards/fora have their own markup, but still, I stand disconcerted.)
Goldberg's book cover has a smiley-face with a Hitler mustache. I am comfortable judging that book by its cover.
Goldberg isn't an obscure figure. He is a columnist in the main newspaper of US's second biggest city.
A better take on smiley facy ionography.
If liberals were to stop paying any attention to Jonah Goldberg, I guess his LA Times gig would disappear, right? And the Corner at the National Review Online is a liberal-created parody blog designed by leftists too lazy to find and engage the true voices of intelligent conservatism. Oh yes.
Looks like some people want others to display greater honesty and self-understanding... can I join in? If people mocking "From Hegel to Whole Foods" strikes you as an unfair attack on your political ideology, then either your political ideology sucks ass, or you're very oversensitive about your political ideology. Or maybe both.
Liberals of course need to be fair and give serious consideration to all views, no matter how transparently ridiculous and insane. Conservatives meanwhile nominate mental midgets to speak for them, and then cry foul that liberals can't pick on people their own size.
116 is the reason the mockery of Goldberg must never stop; he's a buffoon, he's widely acknowledged as a buffoon, and yet he's the person that the fourth- or fifth-most-influential newspaper decided to turn to when they fired Daniel Schorr. If there's a conservative Ezra Klein out there, I'd love to read her, but it would be nice if the actual Ezra Klein could get some of the media attention the Goldbergs and Coulters of the world get.
Or, in short, as an answer to 97: should the existence of Jonah Goldberg lead one to revise their estimate of the probability that American conservatism is bullshit upwards -- the answer, unfortunately for baa and cg, is yes.
He sounds older than dirt on the radio. I mean, I can understand why the LA Times wanted to hire someone born after WWII, but if the Times wanted to hire a Goldberg to offer political commentary, they'd have done better with the wrestler. Christ, what a joke Jonah is.
Snarkout, I bet we just found common ground with baa.
I believe the LAT columnist who got canned was named Robert Scheer, not Daniel Schorr, who has had a home in the" green pastures of NPR" (Mike Wallace's term) for some time now. And there were several columnists who were fired and hired at that time, spanning the ideological spectrum, so it is not precisely correct that Scheer was fired to make room for Goldberg. Not that Goldberg is any less of a tool for all that.
Without going quite as far as 118--there does seem to be something characteristically arrogant about Goldberg's project. It reminds me of an item I came across in the American Spectator some years ago, purporting to debunk the theory of relativity. By contrast, I really can't imagine E.J.Dionne, Eric Alterman, Ezra Klein, Michael Moore, any left of center pundit, glibly pursuing some grand theory of history far outside of the writer's area of expertise or competence.
122 - Iceberg, Goldberg. I looked, though, and you're absolutely correct. My bad.
The relativity thing has a long and storied right-wing (and IIRC right-wing Catholic) tradition, actually; I'm not sure if it has to do with Einstein's Jewishness or what. I think it's Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science that quotes some delicious nonsense from the president of Duquesne, and Googling turn up this.
No dissing Daniel Schorr, people.
Remember the rotten egg principle. You don't need to eat the whole egg to be sure.
I'm not a Goldberg scholar, but I know a fair amount about him, and it's an absolute disgrace that he has the LA Times platform he does.
I feel the same way about Wonkette at Time Magazine, even though I often like her stuff. She's the one they chose to be their token liberal, along with Joe Klein, and she just isn't good enough. I can easily think of 30 people from the blogosphere who could do her job better than her (if her job is really political commentary, which I doubt.) Probably 50.
No dissing Daniel Schorr, people.
What?? Daniel Schorr is a fucking embarrassment.
Ha. Just searched to see if we'd talked about him before.
And.
113: I could have sworn it was - [url=the link]and then words[/url] - only with replacing [ ]. But that didn't work, so I just gave up.
107: "Echo chambers of mockery" - exactly my point. Thanks for expressing it concisely. I hope maybe my reputation as a troll is reduced, even if only slightly.
128: Goldberg is an actual living, breathing, straw man who sits on a very desirable piece of media real estate. His ideological and intellectual deficiencies compound one another, and as a person he also seems extraordinarily shallow, silly, and lazy. Mockery is the only proper response.
If you're saying that bitching amusingly about stupid, dishonest, destructive, undeservedly-influential people is a sign of weakness and helplessness, yeah, that's what it is.
<a href="the link">linked words</a>.
128: Unbelievable. "Don't mock something obviously mockable, because that might lead you to miss all the (completely unspecified and hypothetical) good stuff."
In my desperate attempts to read "intelligent conservatives," I occasionally drop by the Volokh Conspiracy. I recall David Bernstein posting about a quiz comparing Al Gore and Unabomber quotes... and how he couldn't do better than 50% on it! Even though he took it twice! The quiz was transparently stupid (the quotes from both parties were all pretty reasonable -- it's not like Gore has advocated the destruction of modern society), but of course many of the commenters were going off about the Gore and the environmentalist movement.
I suppose cg would find that pretty analagous to this comment thread -- except of course that mockery in one situation is completely deserved and mockery in the other situation is not. Small detail.
127: I agree w/ Burke (in the link) about this. I've a lot of affection for Daniel Schorr, who was good in the day as a reporter, and was about the age of my dad, and reminds me of him. But he hasn't had much to say that I thought was worth listening to in years.
Their implementation of the "Senior Correspondent" concept is very lame. Ted Koppel? c'mon. I thought Bob Trout was good, and he had seldom-heard stories of memorable things, such as Republican reaction in the thirties and forties. Lest we forget. George Seldes would have been even better, but, NPR...
I thought of my dad on the "Chest" thread last night. He was a bit of a bodybuilder, and I can almost hear his reaction. I think he would have said something like: "I'll bet if you were able to ask the peahens, they'd tell you with a straight face, or beak, 'I think it's just gross!'"
Unfogged is the very incarnation of the left's "politics of resentment." Well, no, that would be The Poor Man
So. Awesome.
So. Awesome.
It really should go in the banner.
Could it? I'd be flattered.
Sifu, you must know I'm right. You can disagree with my moral judgment, of course, and my phrasing, and all that. But your site is a veritable clearing-house for that sort of thing. Be flattered: it means you're good at it!
I look forward to reading the inevitable Language Log column about the snowclone "X is the very Y of Z."
Resentment? I don't resent Jonah Goldberg in any way: he's comedy gold! The Poor Man represents, if anything, the politics of mocking idiots for being idiots.
I'm just so hurt that first cg holds out the prospect of being recognized as the very face of the leftist politics of resentment to Unfogged, and then whips it away in favor of the Poor Man. We need to get more resentful -- there's clearly a resentment gap.
Yeah, Tweety, I don't see a lot of resentment at TPM. Somehow you manage to skip right over all the anger and rage and right into Carrot Top jokes. It's one of the few leftist sites to be almost entirely resentment-free.
Mr. President, I will not allow the development of a resentment gap!
Resentment ressentiment is unbecoming, LB.
We have, however, successfully overcome the Mineshaft gap.
People certainly seem to resent my New Orleans posts, but I don't think that's what he meant.
137: Not even a little resentment at his unbelievably disproportionate influence?
It's nothing to be ashamed of. The object of resentment I percieve in the left - that so many right-wing idiots should be so prominent in the media and so close to real power - is much more precise and justified than the resentment the left percieves in the right which is... what, exactly?
145: that scary furriners are taking the plum dishwashing jobs? That liberals are trying to destroy America? That gays are tryin' to get all married on a feller? That poor people make such a damn production out of not having food or whatever?
Those all seem like pretty stupid things to be resentful of to me, but hey, different strokes.
Jesus, who is this cg person and what planet do they live on? They were actually serious about that shit.
146: You're forgetting pointy-headed academics.
I can't help it. I do resent Goldberg's blithe tone while writing shit like this.
Wait, I seem to have been misunderstood. I was saying that the right's hatred of the left is stupid, and that the left's hatred of the right is understandable, if not entirely justified.
149: Oh, if only those bombs had gone off!
Not even a little resentment
Cg, you're changing the rules. The "politics of resentment" has nothing to do with resenting pundits for getting paid.
Goddamned Brits probably would have kept doing what they were doing anyway.
153: Yeah. Spirit of the Blitz my ass -- when will they learn to panic like decent people?
152: In the narrow sense in which the phrase was coined, you're right, it doesn't. I am purposely using the phrase loosely to make a point: that the left can be just as cheap, petty and resentful as the right.
There's also that implied, Boy, it sure is a good thing 9/11 happened, otherwise we wouldn't have had these awesome and exciting past six years! Maybe I wouldn't have even gotten that gig at the LA Times!
I can be pretty cheap, but I don't recall making fun of anybody's dead child, calling for anyone to be executed as a traitor, blithely comparing anyone to Hitler, or calling a war hero a liar and fraud. Maybe it slipped my mind?
155: But you're not making any sense. In 150, you're attempting to get us to agree with you that we're motivated by resentment, by telling us that the left's resentment is understandable and at least partially justified. In 155, you're saying "the left can be just as cheap, petty and resentful as the right".
Now, shifting your ground like that can be disconcerting, and leave people feeling in the wrong, but you have to do it more slowly. Next time, leave an hour or two between the contradictory comments.
Heh.
'More bombs?'
'Yes, dear. Now have another cup of tea'
157: Fine - I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the rhetorical sins of the right, and so any time I make direct comparisons between your and your opponent's level of vitriol, they should be taken with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, I still look at what goes on it liberal blogs and can't resist thinking - wait, something is fucked up here. This is not what I came for!
158: Where's the contradiction? One can have an understandable motivation for being cheap, petty and resentful.
160: the grain in question. Seriously, I'm sorry if my lack of civility bothers you, but there simply isn't any comparison. Also, whatever you're looking for, if liberal blogs do not contain it, maybe you should be looking elsewhere?
True, but you can't get people to agree with you by saying "Your conduct is understandable, while the right's isn't", and then immediately say "You're just as bad as they are." To make that sort of move work, you need a longer time lapse, to get people to forget why they agreed with your first statement.
It's just a slip in technique -- with a little more practice you should have people spinning in circles. Change your name and come back in a couple of weeks if you want to try it again.
159: As last time. (Original's gone.)
161: Some blogs do have good, intelligent, mature debate. Even the best ones, though, fall into this type of pettiness every now and then. And, when they all do it simultaneously, as they did with the Goldberg subtitle fiasco, it's annoying as fuck.
But, it's not as if I really believed blogs would be the saviors of democracy. They just happen to be the closest thing which you can read at work.
162: Oh, forgive me for the rhetorical slip. I can't help but feel like you're being a little bullying now, though, to make such a big deal out of such a little mistake - and an obvious one, too.
162 - Don't trust her! This is what LB does when people make her mad by changing their name! Although you may be safe under the "incomphrensible string of letters" clause, do you really want to to trust New York's most savage lawyer?
Why, yes, I am. That's another flaw of left-wing blogs; a nasty unpleasant tendency to bully people who don't successfully conceal the logical flaws in their tendentiously dishonest abuse. Nicer people than I would be shamed.
Perhaps you should go find some to play with.
165: She-Hulk wears sneakers with Velcro instead of laces? I'm stunned.
Some blogs do have good, intelligent, mature debate.
I don't believe you.
164.1: weird, because I thought it was hilarious.
165: Seeing as I'm in a New York law office right now - no, I wouldn't trust a New York lawyer, even of middling viciousness.
166: Well, I guess this is about as close to an old-style running-out as I'm willing to get. Later. I would conclude this perfectly by linking to a comment someone made a few months ago - and boy, am I surprised that that poster didn't get all of you to close ranks the way I did - which said something about how the people who post witticisms at sites like this are much, much less interesting in person. Unfortunately, I can't be bothered to find it.
167: Shocked and disappointed, indeed.
I enjoyed reading Goldberg in NR when he was a wiseguy, giving the fratboy snark take on the Corner. And the LA Times gig is at best a stretch for him, because he has to write more than three sentences. Let PJ O'Rourke write the snarky books, please. Jonah is demonstating in living color the Peter Principle.
Nice to meet you. Come on back sometime after you've worked on your timing a little.
(Crap. Delayed in sending this, so it may repeat things said since I wrote it 15 minutes ago.)
160.1:
I still look at what goes on it liberal blogs and can't resist thinking - wait, something is fucked up here.
It might help if you said which liberal blogs you're talking about.
That said, look. For issues on which you feel the liberal blogosphere engages in nothing but allegedly resentful mockery, you apparently wish for genuine engagement.
You're missing something fundamental: we (some of us, whatever) decline to let the right set the terms of discussion. If a Jonah Goldberg throws down the gauntlet, as it were, declaring the fall of civilization at the hands of the fascist left, well, my dear, we decline to have a conversation that begins defensively: No, no! We are not fascists! We are not pointy-headed elitist ivory tower academics, even if we do study Hegel! Really! Um, we actually like capitalism? Uh.
You see. That puts the term "fascist liberal" in play in whatever counts as the national debate. The people, whoever they are, hear a phrase like that, and no matter how genuinely, eloquently or vociferously we might deny it, the seed of suspicion is planted.
Not gonna go there. Go read George Lakoff on framing if you're really not familiar with this concept. He's not exactly original about it, but does provide a reasonable encapsulation if the notion escapes you.
Yeah, we talk mean about Goldberg when all he does is call us fascists while writing a lazy dishonest inaccurate column for the fourth best paper in the US. We should tend to our knitting.
And Ann Coulter. Elizabeth Edwards was so mean to her, just because Ann concealed a possibly valid point far under a heap of scurrilous abuse.
CG, I hope you find something more profitable to do to waste time. There's no chance whatsover that you'll find what you want here, and if I know you're around I'll pour it on double.
170 is the lead-in to where we discover that cg is one of the partners at LB's firm.
My original position, before I was caricatured and forced into arguing about things of a much, much wider scope, by the way, was very simple: It's pretty pathetic to pretend to examine the pyschological state of the people you abuse and then conclude that there are mitigating factors which make your abuse something else or ineffective.
I just thought I'd make that clear before I go, since there's actually a decent chance that someone here will be receptive to that point, rather than the much larger point about liberal debate that I ended up having to make.
That is all.
We should tend to our knitting.
Actually, this is true.
176: It would be awesome - but no, I'm the 18-year-old over-paid intern who got the job through his father.
It just occured to me that I'm not truly anonymous here since I used my email address which has my real name. So, if that astounding coincidence really happened, LB would have realized it already, I'm sure.
I just thought I'd make that clear before I go
No such luck. I still haven't the foggiest idea what point you're trying to make.
There's an 'h' in psychological, cg.
we decline to have a conversation that begins defensively: No, no! We are not fascists! We are not pointy-headed elitist ivory tower academics, even if we do study Hegel!
Oh man, I had that conversation for years before I finally gave up.
the people who post witticisms at sites like this are much, much less interesting in person
Sigh. If only I were as delightful and funny here as I am IRL.
181: Jesus fucking christ. I was going to stick around to see if the lawyer thing got funny, but this is getting ridiculous.
As if I weren't getting enough evidence that lawyers are the most unbearable assholes offline already.
see if the lawyer thing got funny, but this is getting ridiculous.
Funny != ridiculous? Cf. Fielding, please.
This is awesome. Finally LB gets to be the asshole for a change.
Sanctimony brings it out in me.
179 -- any relation to Jeff?
185: again, if you're not looking for grammar pedantry, why are you here?
I think we're missing cg's most important point, which is that it's not nice to make fun of people who get their jobs through their parents' connections.
191 deftly snatches the asshole crown from LB and merrily sprints to the finish.
Also, cg, you might like Ezra Klein's explanation, which perhaps treats Mouthbreather Jonah with slightly more of the respect and care you'd expect from a swimming-and-cock-joke blog such as this one.
192: Indeed. I bow to the gentleman from Ohio.
That gays are tryin' to get all married on a feller?
You noticed? Shit.
For what it's worth, I doubt that cg is a hopeless conservative apologist or on-the-one-hander. I think it's actually fair to look at snark on the right and snark on the left and say, "maybe they have the best reasons for snark but the Left also has the best ideals to pursue and I'd hoped they'd be doing that." I think that myself a great deal about Blogistan in general. There's a reason I read like three blogs anymore and have a low opinion of "serious" blogs. I don't think it's wise to look to Unfogged to be the shining light of hope and even discourse on the Left because, for cock'sfuck's sake, posta please. Job number one around here is clearly wit and steam-release and I think most people (including myself) find that more rewarding on a day-to-day basis than any council convened to make sure all the world's problems get solved. If cg wants to see a reasoned debate and read an upward-gazing voice on the left then, y'know, hosting's cheap. Best of luck. In the meantime, baa and Idealist and TLL and the various debates I've seen them have in comment threads here are as close as the webbertrons are getting anytime soon to a reasoned, even exchange of ideas.
The fact is, though, anyone who looks to any internet site or newsgroup or blog or ezboard or whatever as the place to solve big problems in the real world is clearly new to the neighborhood. That just isn't how people use the internet. I doubt that will ever change.
191 deftly snatches the asshole crown
An asshole crown is what happens when you wait too long to go to the bathroom. "Move out of the way! I'm crowning!"
cg's being relentlessly mocked.
For what it's worth, if cg's still here, Sifu has it in 180: not the foggiest idea what point you're trying to make.
Plus. I only shop at Whole Foods sometimes! I do have issues with them. This single queue / multiple queue thing concerns me, for example. There's a great deal to say about it.
Oh, wait, did I say "queue"? I meant line. Line. I don't know where that "queue" thing came from, some kind of stick-up-your-butt Britishism. Please to ignore. Ridiculous spelling, that word, anyway. Hard.
Have we already done a thread where we predict the next subtitle change? That would be fun.
Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from the Magna Carta to the Muppet Christmas Carol.
Baby Jesus in a handbasket, this is pretty ridiculous.
(Sock puppets?
Yes, Cala?
Take it away.)
FL: Gee, it's pretty lame to have to re-subtitle your book to something nonsensical soley because the old subtitle probably wouldn't sell as well and to try to pretend you believe it. I hope Cala gets my Pascal reference.
Commentariat: Do you think he'll read the Hegel, or that he just heard about it? How is Whole Foods fascist?
cg: You guys are being mean.
A&B: Yes, we are.
cg: This is the very face of liberal argument.
A&B: You mistake laughing at someone for an argument.
baa: [A good point that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.]
cg: I AM EMBOLDENED.
ogged: I have a cock joke. And I know where Tennessee is.
bob: To the ramparts!
cg: You resent that Goldberg is an idiot with a pulpit. "Politics of resentment" means you have resentment.
SB: I have pants. Now I have the politics of pants.
TLL: Dude, even I'm not defending that dumbasses title. Also, I'm not a lawyer.
Commentariat: O the asses of the actresses!! O the nipples of the steroid junkies!
snarkout: lalala I win the thread!
Hrm. Given that you've just summarized the entire blog, I think that means we all have to pack up and go home now.
For those of you still trying to engage me, thanks, but I've (finally) heeded the endless exhortations to check which blog I'm posting this on. All of you have convinced me that you're not interested in reasonable debate, and only in making fun; so, I'm going to listen.
I'm still reading the thread, because what else am I going to do when my job is data entry? That's about the only reason, however, so don't expect me to bother to write anything substantive again.
bob: To the ramparts!
Hee.
200: Think of it as more of a cliff notes version, for those people who actually have to work.
Well, the important thing is that LB got to be rude to an 18 year old. Because of the sanctimony.
I feel some responsibility for all of this, since I wrote the offending post in the first place. To follow up on 195, it's not just that we stopped doing as much halfway serious political stuff as we used to-- we stopped (as I understand it) because we independently looked around and noticed that so many others do it better. Just speaking for myself, I don't have many political thoughts that Drum, Marshall, Yglesias, Hilzoy, Klein, etc. haven't articulated better. So what's left? Cocks, dog abuse, and heaving manbosoms.
102: hooray!
200: I want to be a hand puppet!
You'll find plenty of reasonable debate here. But you'll not get it when you make your entry with: "The left is just as despicable as the right, and perhaps even more. Discuss."
oh, sorry, forgot the conclusion to 205. The point is that this is a blog that gave up on playing a certain role *because others did it better* and so the place to look for better political posts is...*at the blogs that convinced us to stop.* I feel like we're being criticized for failing at a task we didn't attempt.
Also, 199 is great.
cg, if you want some reasonable debate, feel free. seriously. You and Baa think I'm a dick to make fun of Jonah Goldberg or to think about what it would be like to be on the business end of a ton of snark. Could be. Certainly it's a cheap shot. But it let me say "from Hugo Grotius to Hugo Boss" and for that I am eternally grateful.
How else is an 18 year old supposed to learn?
Seriously, cg appears to be a fairly clever kid, with a nice turn of sanctimonious invective. If he's just trying to piss people off, he's doing very nicely, and just needs to work on his timing some; a little more work, and he'll be trolling with the very best.
If I've sorely misjudged him, which happens, he's learned something, whether it's about how to tell which people aren't worth talking to, or about how to start a conversation in a manner calculated to produce engagement rather than abuse. And it's a cheap lesson -- he's got no investment in this place, and can start fresh somewhere else whenever he likes.
I wouldn't have an inflated sense of self-importance in addition to my sanctimony, but I feel almost as if I triggered an Unfogged identity crisis. You should decide whether you're a place for reasonable debate or not.
Oh, honey, we've had identity crises around here. This is just a little internal conflict over how much we should be pitying you.
213: can't it vary from thread to thread?
Taking off from Atrios, I suspect that reasoned debate is, like leadership, something that has to be engaged in, rather than called for.
215: From comment to comment, happily. Counterpuntal blogging.
The stupid thing is, this blog actually does dialogue pretty well. When there's actually a debate going on. And whether or not the posts have anything to do with it.
213: unfogged is a place for teh gay. No problemo.
Some threads are places for reasonable debate, some are not. Similarly, some threads are places for Apostropher's disgusting videos, and some are not. Pretty much the only constant is B hectoring everyone for staring at Jessica Biel's ass. Seriously, did you just wander over here and not realize this?
I are reasonable commenter.
This are reasonable thread.
205: I think there's a lot of great political commentary. Also commentary on: philosophy (I don't understand any of it, but yay, smart people, etc.), dogs getting handjobs, etc. When the political discussion and debate comes up, great! I didn't see that in the mission statement, though, and I think it's kind of stupid for anyone to roll up on Unfogged and be like, "Where's all the even political debate?! Isn't that what you meant on the front page when you suggested the presence of cock jokes?!"
220: You've forgot the Quorn. (Which, I must say, I'm with B that I would eat only under the circumstances under which I'd eat mealworms. If politeness absolutely required it, or if I were starving. But a proprietary foodstuff made of mold and various other ingredients by a process I don't understand is not something I plan to eat.)
214: I'm not silly enough to ask why, but I am very curious. I would guess it's because I'm stupid, or naive, but I'd be a little excited if it were something more interesting than that.
I suppose it's rather complex, and you've been forming a nice little portrait of me in your head. I've certainly given enough details about my personal life to give rise to that temptation.
Some threads are places for reasonable debate, some are not. Similarly, some threads are places for Apostropher's disgusting videos, and some are not. Pretty much the only constant is B hectoring everyone for staring at Jessica Biel's ass.
Do not explain the plot!
If cg doen't understand, then he should not be here!
IM IN YR DEBATE, MOCKING YR REZNBULNESS
Oh, nothing personal. You look to me like you came in purely to be unpleasant, without any interest in rational conversation, and you did a really very nice job with it -- no pity necessary, any flaws in your execution will straighten out with a little more practice.
Some of the more charitable among us are thinking that perhaps you really did want to talk about something substantive, but were just too much of a clod to manage it, in which case pity is well deserved -- even at eighteen, if this has been your conception of a substantive political argument, you really need to work on your rhetorical skills.
So cg, instead of complaining about people laughing at a prominent moron, why don't you make a positive contribution to intelligent reasoned debate.
(Maybe you made such a comment in the "Chest" thread; if so, I'm sorry I missed it. But it seems a little presumptuous to write something like "so don't expect me to bother to write anything substantive again" -- let's face it, you wouldn't have bothered to lamely defend Goldberg if he wasn't a conservative pundit. All you're doing is pleading that mockworthy conservatives shouldn't be mocked because it lowers the level of discourse. That's substance?)
because I'm stupid or naive
No, my impression was that it was because you were getting ruded by LB.
because you were getting ruded by LB
Be considerate to others,
or I will bite your torso
and give you a disease!
I suspect that cg might be happier at Obsidian Wings. The liberal debate there can get stultifying sometimes, but it's certainly reasonable. Mostly.
Wait, hilzoy made fun of Jonah too.
227: I'm sure you'll consider it a cop-out, but I blame the medium. I understand you invest a significant amount of time into this, so you probably already have a defense ready; still, you might consider how it's difficult to keep up a decent rhetorical front against twenty or so people when - and I wasn't so ignorant of the nature of Unfogged to miss that this is the reigning style - the argument began with purposefully brief and easily misunderstood remarks. Vaguely insulting/challenging remarks, not unreasonably mistaken for trolling, I might add. So I really shouldn't have been surprised when I was taken for the worst right away.
I was forced into this debate, and I was forced into discussing issues much more general than I initially intended. Perhaps you could be understable - likely not, though, since this place is defensive as hell.
Really, though, I appreciate your "nothing personal" introduction and then your obviously ageist conclusion. It's almost like you're doing what you accused me of!
But they're talking about SCOTUS and GTMO and the value of abstract ideas now!
But in an unimpeachably reasonable fashion. There is a patient, patient, woman.
It's almost like you're doing what you accused me of!
My mind is officially BLOWN.
I was forced into this debate
I should mention that I slipped GHB into cg's virgin appletini.
And cg, you should know that ageism from the Right means discriminating against someone for his age. Ageism from the Left means not flat-out calling you an unsophisticated boring troll because, well, you have a lot of growing to do, whippersnapper. Call it the "soft bigotry of low expectations" if you like, but the end result is that no one is being very mean to you.
the argument began with purposefully brief and easily misunderstood remarks
Not the best way to engage in substantive debate, kiddo.
not unreasonably mistaken for trolling
See, if you know this, and you still do it? You are trolling.
Labs, it's Standpipe. I need to sex you.
No twinks, Standpipe. Just muscle queens. Meet me at the squat rack.
your obviously ageist conclusion.
Did you bring your baby?
Babies don't blog this.
Take the seed outside!
Nipples happily pointing up. Yay!
And then the bear said, "you don't come here to debate, do you?"
243: Oh, because if I came in here with a good 800-word post about how pathetic it is to pretend to empathize with those you pick on, and how our discourse should be more mature, etc., I would have been well-received? C'mon. My argument was critical of this place: therefore, it was doomed from the start.
250: That is the bravest suicide mission I've ever heard described. You, sir--are you a Green Beret?
I'm totally reading cg's blog when he starts it.
237:
Jesus Christ, cg, you're really making it worse. Nobody forced you to do anything. This place is actually extremely reasonable. If it weren't, this conversation wouldn't have continued as far as it has. Very little of the seeming identity crisis has to do with you. It's not about you. So cease.
And I haven't even been around here very long; still I can see this.
cg, now that I'm done joking about rape, I'll note that I wasn't empathizing (in the sense I take you to mean) so much as wondering what it's like.
239 to 236.
I had some patient explanation for cg, but on preview everyone else pwned me.
It is tough, and life is unfair -- some people can be all rude and insulting and people think they're clever and funny, and then when other people try to do exactly the same thing, it doesn't get the same response. Nothing to be done about it though, except to either get funnier, get politer, or get resigned to the reactions you get.
249 makes me fall in love with you all over again, Ogged.
is making fun of newspaper columnists who call you fascist never okay, or is just unfair because Goldberg's so stupid?
256: Doesn't it just. Well, 249 and those swimming-pumped pecs.
cg, speaking incomprehensible truth to non-power.
250: Pretty much all I do is be critical of this place. Have you been reading?
But in any case your 'argument' in your 14 is pretty much at the level of take a bunch of random cliches and throw them at the comment box. Reread 37. If you want to argue, I'd suggest making an argument.
Is there a fact of the matter about what it's like to be cg?
251: I didn't actually intend any of this. I thought my comment wouldn't be noticed at all, or would maybe elicit one or two very slight agreements/disagreements. Maybe that would have happened if I were a regular; I should have anticipated the reaction to such comments from a new poster.
252: I actually had a blog for a few months this winter, but I got sick of it. I'd explain why, but hell, if this happened because I was critical of one type of blogging, I wouldn't dare offer my criticisms of blogging itself.
This is, probably like my summer job, not something I should mention, since Google's cache has two posts - and two quite random ones, neither my best.
Goldberg's got to have titanium defensive walls. Maybe some of the snark is penetrating, but we'll have to take it up a notch or two when the book is actually released.
If someone wants reasonable left-wing debate, they should be heading over to Ezra Klein, TPMCafe, the American Prospect, or the Washington Monthly. Don't let the sparkling wit and obvious intelligence of the Unfogged commentariat make you think this place is about reasonable debate. Occasionally one breaks out, but that's only when the heavyweight veterans here become momentarily bored with the cock jokes. Or nipple jokes, lately.
The key point is: if you think someone's stupid, you also must believe they think of themselves as stupid, or else you're a hypocrite. Orwell would have seen this.
Awesome. cg, if you didn't identify with Jonah Goldberg you wouldn't be upset that people were making fun of him. And you only call for civility because without super-politeness Goldberg gets blown away -- certainly on substantive matters he has nothing to offer. So basically you want to lower the level of discourse (all views should be treated respectfully, no matter how stupid).
262: You hit us on a slow day -- you wouldn't believe how little is going on in my office. But trust me, you would have annoyed people just as much if we knew you better.
264: Head over there for the posts, but the comment sections pretty much comprise a Matrix ton of Als.
Does 249 come after the shoots and the leaves, or before?
263: I like to imagine Lowry has the Keyboard Kommando Komix about Jonah taped up on his office door.
our discourse should be more mature
See, 18 year olds yearn for maturity, but once they get there they'll find it's not all it's cracked up to be.
this happened because I was critical of one type of blogging
Dude, reread your comments from 7 to 14. It didn't take many requests for clarification of your point for you to get around to calling Unfogged the very face of leftist resentment. Which was a good line, but probably needed some follow-through to make it a good trolling. And you're surprised and disappointed that people made defensively snide remarks?
Yeah, that hurt. We don't even get to be an idiosyncratically quirky face of leftist resentment?
On the other hand, Googling cg's name took me to here, so there's that.
The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war. cg, had Jonah tried some of his material in an adversarial venue, (not like Unfogged) as oppossed to the Corner, he would have been ready for the Show. He got "promoted" because the LA Times, in its infinite wisdom, thought it was losing readers because it was too liberal (or so the consultants said) so they hired him and threw out Scheer, who was an asshole anyway.
I wish I was the very face of something.
272: "Requests for clarification"? Actually, the two responses to mine before I wrote that line were complete disbelief that I could even be serious.
cg's, ummm, "points" are related to one important recent development on the left. I think around 2003 or so, people really started to internalize that it was impossible to take on the right "on the merits" of their positions, because there were no merits. The Bush-ites were only covering up the brazen power grabs with the fig leaf of propaganda, and reasonable arguments against e.g. the Iraq invasion couldn't even get into the media. So Jon Stewart et. al. starting treating all this crap humorously, which although it had an element of laughing to keep from crying, was about all you could do.
I for one eagerly await the day when it will once again be worthwhile to have a lengthy, heavily footnoted, and ponderously rational exchange with right wingers.
"Ah yes, you want room 12A, Just along the corridor."
274: Not me. And since that result wasn't even on the first page of a Google search of my name - and my actual blog cache's were - I sense a cheap shot.
For what it's worth, I thought that cg's remark about being an 18-year-old intern whose job rested on his parents' influence was just a reference to Ogged's recent post on same.
In other words, this has become boring trollishness.
Actually, the two responses to mine before I wrote that line were complete disbelief that I could even be serious.
Well marcus, don't conflate Republican with right wing for a start. Especially this Administration. I know it is as close as it gets, but that's like calling the Democrats pinko commie hippies, when in fact both parties are more interested in re-election rather than governing from an ideological standpoint.
Anyway, I'm leaving work now and will be away from the internet for the weekend, so this is finally laid to rest, I suppose.
268: yeah, that's unfortunately often true. TPMCafe sometimes has some good commenters, though maybe I was just there on a good day. Brad Delong and Crooked Timber have pretty good commenters too.
Not a cheap shot at all - I simply spelled your first name with two "n"s, but now I'm enjoying Austen fanfic and short stories about elves written by the creator of the Christian Guide to Fantasy (Anne McCaffrey is a prolific authoress who gets four stars for Literary Quality but is merely "Good/Dangerous" in her moral rectitude).
284: Were you talking like that in 2003? Unfortunately, there were very few ideological right wingers who resisted the impulse to align themselves with the Republicans under Bush. I have a ton of respect for the Jim Henleys, Ron Pauls, and Scott McConnells of the world, and I even gained a lot more respect for Pat Buchanan when he spoke out against the Iraq war. But they were a lonely minority.
Careful where you point that moral rectitude, buster.
When I was a kid, I read all of McCaffrey's books. I am now Good/Dangerous.
Ooh, me too. I can't think of anything else that I enjoyed so much at the time that looks so sorry in retrospect.
LB never read her cousin Bruce Banner's Piers Anthony books.
No, I did, but I was more clearly aware that they were crap while I was reading them. The McCaffery stuff I enjoyed wholeheartedly.
Why does McCaffrey look so sorry in retrospect? I suppose I can construct an explanation myself.
I sometimes wonder, though, about the urge to disown what once had meaning.
295b: Because I jerked off to it?
Possibly because so much of the plots was driven by adolescent soft-porn? The "No, it's not your fault. When the dragons are mating you're absolutely compelled to have great sex with the person standing next to you," is embarrassing when looked back on.
My cynicism about those who reside in Incumbantstan started way before 2003. Like 1973.
Plus, her female characters were usually pretty interesting. Until they got married. But up until they they were a Prime or a Harper!
Sexypwned! Must be dragon matin' season!
Oh. I don't remember that part. I chiefly remember the joyous flying on the backs of dragons. Just the soaring thing.
Actually, though, I don't find
The "No, it's not your fault. When the dragons are mating you're absolutely compelled to have great sex with the person standing next to you,"
particularly embarrassing.
But it occurs to me that I'm also probably conflating McCaffrey's dragon series (I read all of it, I think, but long enough ago) with whichever Delany has the young girl Pryn (?) flying on a dragon for the first time. Which launches her entry into the world of writing.
I confess that I read and adored (while being very aware that I was not the target demographic and enjoying the distance that provided me) the Crystal Singer trilogy... when I was 23.
And with that, weekend! Away!
